Security devices have continued to evolve over time to improve their functional capabilities and reduce the cost of such devices. Some security devices are currently provided to be attached to individual products or objects in order to deter or prevent theft of such products or objects. In some cases, the security devices may include tags or other such components that can be detected, for example, by gate devices at the exit of a retail establishment and/or tracked while being moved in the retail establishment. These tags may sometimes be read for inventory management purposes and may include, or otherwise be associated with, specific information about the type of product to which they are attached.
In order to improve the ability of retailers to deter theft and/or manage inventory, the security devices, and the systems in which they operate, are continuously being improved. For example, various improvements to the security tag have been introduced in an attempt to improve the ability of the security tag to work with packaged products.
In this regard, placing a security tag on conductive products, for example a product with metallic packaging or a product containing conductive materials, has been problematic for the security industry. Conventionally, when a security tag is placed on a conductive product or a product packaged with metallic packaging, not only are the security tag resonant characteristics, for example the resonant frequency and the associated Q factor, dramatically changed but also the interrogation field to the security tag is destroyed or impacted due to an eddy current effect of the metallic packaging in close proximity with the security tag. As a result, the security system typically fails to detect the presence of the security tag when placed on a conductive product or a product packaged with metallic packaging.
In order to overcome this issue, thick spacers, typically resulting in an encapsulated security tag being spaced off of the packaged product, have been used in the security industry with conductive products or products packaged with metallic packaging.
Accordingly, a low profile, low cost security tag for conductive products or products packaged with metallic packaging that maintains good radio frequency (RF) detection performance is needed in the security industry.